India’s higher education system faces two challenges at once. A qualification earned in one part of the country should be recognised and respected elsewhere, but the education offered must also be relevant to its students, languages, social setting, and surrounding economy. These aims may appear to pull in different directions. In practice, they can reinforce each other.

This balance is the essence of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which makes responsiveness to India’s diversity and local conditions a guiding principle for curriculum, teaching, and policy. It calls for careful planning, joint monitoring, and collaboration between the Centre and the States and supports institutional autonomy and the expansion of programmes in local languages. Thus, it provides meaningful room for State priorities and local aspirations.

Let us see how this principle is taking institutional form in practice. PM-USHA gives States and Union Territories an important role in identifying focus districts. Its guidelines use indicators relating to participation, equity, remoteness, and access to government colleges. States and Union Territories then recommend institutions and prepare proposals based on local needs. The scheme’s support for 35 Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities, with up to ₹100 crore for each selected university, is based on a State-led and region-sensitive process.

Broad guidelines

National frameworks provide broad guidelines to institutions without imposing rigid prescriptions. For instance, the UGC framework leaves important academic decisions to institutional statutory bodies. Boards of Studies and Academic Councils can determine course lists and allocate credits across different programme structures. Thus, the frameworks focus on achieving the desired learning outcomes rather than imposing uniformity across every syllabus or subject combination.

NEP 2020 seeks to remove rigid separations among arts, sciences and vocational learning while preserving disciplinary depth. New interdisciplinary programmes can build confidence over time alongside established ones. Institutions are best placed to undertake this patient work. Recent commentary on regional higher-education needs has rightly emphasised that admission patterns must be understood in their regional context. This local perspective can work within, rather than against, a national framework for academic mobility. Such data can reveal demand within a particular institution or region, but they must be interpreted carefully.

A student’s choice is also an exercise of agency. Career information should broaden that choice, not prescribe a single “correct” course based on short-term market trends. The All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2023–24 records 4.50 crore students, compared with 3.42 crore in 2014–15. Over the same period, the gross enrolment ratio for the 18–23 age group rose from 23.7 to 30. These gains indicate an expanding social base. They are useful for building measures for flexibility, inclusion, and regional capacity.

Beyond course preferences, institutional reputation will continue to influence student decisions. Reputation may reflect not only teaching and research but also history, location, alumni, programme range, and public visibility. A constructive approach is to widen the number of institutions that students and families can choose with confidence. PM-USHA’s support for State universities, colleges, new model degree colleges and institutions in underserved districts contributes to this objective. Its value will be demonstrated progressively through improvements in teaching, student support, completion rates, research, and employment opportunities.

Student portability

At the same time, local relevance should not confine a learner to the place of study. The National Credit Framework and the Academic Bank of Credits seek to make academic, vocational and experiential learning recognisable and portable across institutions and States. By July 2026, more than 700 universities and 6,600 colleges were offering multiple-entry and multiple-exit options. About 450 universities allow students to earn up to 40% of programme credits through SWAYAM. Through the Academic Bank of Credits, institutions must ensure that credits are accurately recorded, transferred, and redeemed to enable students to complete their programmes promptly. When these arrangements work well, portability and place-based learning support student mobility. A student can acquire experience with a local enterprise, continue learning through another approved mode, and carry recognised achievement into a new institution or another state.

A related question concerns the relationship between curriculum and employment. Degrees cannot be designed only around immediate job openings because economies and occupations change. Higher education must build knowledge, judgement, communication, creativity, and the capacity to learn. It should also give students opportunities to apply those capabilities in professional, social, and community settings. NEP 2020’s emphasis on multidisciplinary learning, internships, vocational exposure and local opportunity mapping brings these purposes together.

In response, implementation is steadily moving in this direction. UGC guidance enables institutions to develop internship projects suited to their academic programmes and the surrounding economic environment. Its university-industry framework encourages regional clusters, Industry Relations Cells and engagement with micro, small, and medium enterprises. Apprenticeship-embedded degree programmes and Professors of Practice provide further channels for professional participation. AICTE’s model curricula and applied-learning initiatives similarly connect technical education with projects, internships and emerging fields. These mechanisms respect the academic role of institutions while bringing employers and practitioners into appropriate parts of the learning process.

Work-based learning

The inclusion of work-based learning in education is necessary in the emerging Indian economy. A Rajya Sabha reply dated July 29, 2026, reported that NATS engaged about 17.22 lakh apprentices between 2021-22 and 2025-26. During this period, the Ministry of Education released ₹2,892.75 crores towards stipend support. The reply also reported about 457 MoUs with higher education institutions for apprenticeship-embedded degree programmes and more than 500 SWAYAM Plus courses developed with 89 industry partners across 17 sectors. SWAYAM Plus offered more than 500 courses developed with 89 industry partners across 17 sectors. These are enabling arrangements. Building on this progress, their contribution can be assessed by completion rates, skills gained, employment, and employer feedback.

Accordingly, we should continue to build a stronger evidence base linking education to opportunity. From graduating students, institutes could collect information on employment, further study, entrepreneurship, location, wages, and the use of skills at suitable intervals after graduation, while respecting privacy issues. They should also present student-facing programme information, such as curriculum, costs, eligibility, accreditation, internships, completion, and possible pathways, in clear language, without making predictive promises. States and regional skills centres could bring together official labour data, apprenticeship information, industry evidence and institutional records. This can help students and families, institutions, employers and States make better decisions.

Ultimately, India needs a connected education system in which qualifications are recognised across regions. Institutions should adapt to local needs, while students should be free to choose their learning pathways. We should continue to strengthen institutional capacity, measure outcomes reliably and use better regional data. NEP 2020 provides us with a path to develop national frameworks that focus on local relevance to create better opportunities for all learners.

Views are personal

The writer is the Chairman of the Review Committee for NEP 2020 and Chairman, BoG, IIM-Calcutta.

Published - August 15, 2026 12:27 pm IST